As I was sitting in my window seat nervous and looking haggard from a bad night’s sleep, a warm welcoming voice came over the plane’s intercom. The first sentence was to inform us we would be landing soon. The words were in English, but the next voice was foreign but unique in a beautiful language known as Gaelic. I looked out the window in awe of the picturesque fields of green, the shimmering blue of the ocean and the pillowing clouds above. It was then that I knew I was no longer in England or the United States but the emerald isle of Ireland. After Landing in Dublin I made my way through customs, swooning over the Irish accents all around me, forcing myself to grab my bags off the carousel before I recorded all of it on my phone. I found my way to the exit doors and was welcomed with a warm and fresh wisp of air, smelling of green grass and fresh air. I continuously blinked my eyes thinking it was all a dream when a man came up and tried taking my bags. After screaming stranger danger he just laughingly stated he was a cab driver. With cheeks as red as tomatoes I apologized and gave the address for my hotel. After arriving at my hotel and a quick cat nap I was ready to take on Dublin. I had picked out the outfit, prepped myself but still did not have the courage to go the pub inside the hotel alone. My sister Amanda gave me the pep talk I needed and off to the pub I went. I was prepared, Kindle in hand to have a real Irish pub experience. Little did I know I was getting myself into more than I had imagined. With a pint of Guinness in front of me, I snuck a peak around and was one of only four people besides the bartenders in the place. I put the Guinness to my lips and could taste the roasted barley melting on my taste bud... ... middle of paper ... ... the proper way to drink Guinness and tasting a few different versions of Jamison, it was time to ghost hunt. I was shaking with excitement as the bus pulled up, Magnus jumped with fear as the guide leapt off the top of the bus at him. It was a preview for what was an extraordinary tour with many hair raising stories. While walking back to the hotel I became sad to think it was time to start packing for the flight home. With a kiss and tearful hug goodbye from Magnus, it was time to fly back home to reality. The three days I spent in Ireland were some of the most memorable I have in my life. I took in another culture and met a wonderful man from it. Magnus and I still keep in contact and plan to see each other again. I will never forget Ireland and plan to go back every year. And as they say in Ireland may the craic be ever with you, May the fun be ever with you.
Meagher, Timothy. “The Columbia Guide to Irish American History.” Columbia University Press- New York, 2005
When the day came to leave I was woken at the crack of dawn. I was keen to get to Blackpool as swiftly as possible, not only for the football that was ahead of us but also for the famous Pleasure Beach. The coach picked us up at around 8 am and in we crammed into an already full coach. The journey down was full of laughter and friendly joking from the parents. That day, it was particularly hot and inside the coach a number of people were becoming uncomfortable. I was unaffected by the warmth inside the coach, with my earphones in I relaxed and paid more attention to the vast countryside we were passing through. The vivid scenery blew me away, with colossal hills to calm rivers that we met on the journey.
There is particular consideration given to the political climate in this story. It is incorporated with social and ethnic concerns that are prevalent. The story also addresses prejudice and the theme of ethnic stereotyping through his character development. O'Connor does not present a work that is riddled with Irish slurs or ethnic approximations. Instead, he attempts to provide an account that is both informative and accurate.
...., Agnich, L. E., Stogner, J., & Miller, B. L. (2014). ‘Me and my drank:’ Exploring the
James Joyce created a collection of short stories in Dubliners describing the time and place he grew up in. At the time it was written, Joyce intends to portray to the people of Dublin the problems with the Irish lifestyles. Many of these stories share a reoccurring theme of a character’s desire to escape his or her responsibilities in regards to his relationship with his, job, money situation, and social status; this theme is most prevalent in After the Race, Counterparts, and The Dead.
Joyce seems to be trying to get the reader to understand that Dublin is a
Irish American Magazine, Aug.-Sept. 2009. Web. The Web. The Web. 06 May 2014.
Stoddard, Eve Walsh. “Home and Belonging among Irish Migrants: Transnational versus Placed Identities in The Light of Evening and Brooklyn: A Novel.” Eire-Ireland 47.1 & 2 (Summer 2012): 147-171.
Twentieth Century Interpretations of Dubliners. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: 1968. Torchiana, Donald T. Backgrounds for Joyce’s Dubliners. Allen & Unwin, Inc. Winchester, Massachusetts: 1986.
The McCourt family leaves their apartment in Brooklyn to set sail for Ireland, leaving behind an apartment with indoor plumbing and the memory of a dead sister in hopes of finding a better life amongst “the poverty, the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father, the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire, pompous priests, and bullying schoolmasters” of Ireland. This tragic story is told from the point of view of a child, Frank McCourt, whose father is a driftless alcoholic and whose mother does moan by the fire.
Many of these Irish immigrants had no skills, no previous experience and no money. They also had only a few clothes and little hope as well as little education. In hopes to finding better times and opportunities, however, instead they encountered times no better than the conditions they left behind in Ireland. The living conditions were not glamorous or even comfortable. Often times t...
In James Joyce’s Dubliners, the theme of escape tends to be a trend when characters are faced with critical decisions. Joyce’s novel presents a bleak and dark view of Ireland; his intentions by writing this novel are to illustrate people’s reasons to flee Ireland. In the stories “Eveline, “Counterparts”, and the “Dead”, characters are faced with autonomous decisions that shape their lives. This forlorn world casts a gloomy shadow over the characters of these stories. These stories are connected by their similar portrayal of Ireland. They clearly represent Joyce’s views on people’s discontent with Ireland.
Furthermore, alcoholism, which is looked at critically by Joyce, is still a large social problem today. Ultimately, Joyce challenges the reader not to settle for the ordinary life. In conclusion, one of the great short stories of the 20th century is James Joyce’s “Eveline.” The story breaks away from traditional thinking by making the case for hazard or taking chances over order and the routine of everyday life. Like his other stories in “Dubliners” Joyce uses “Eveline” as an avenue to share his frustrations with early 20th century Dublin.
James Joyce’s Dubliners is a collection of short stories that aims to portray middle class life in Dublin, Ireland in the early twentieth century. Most of the stories are written with themes such as entrapment, paralysis, and epiphany, which are central to the flow of the collection of stories as a whole. Characters are usually limited financially, socially, and/or by their environment; they realize near the end of each story that they cannot escape their unfortunate situation in Dublin. These stories show Joyce’s negative opinion of the ancient Irish city .The final story, “The Dead,” was added later than the others; consequently, “The Dead” has a more positive tone and is often an exception to generalizations made about Dubliners. An example of the distinction of “The Dead” is in Joyce’s use of sensory imagery. In stories such as “Araby” and “A Painful Case,” Joyce describes the loss of hearing and vision through the use of descriptive imagery in order to describe the perpetual paralysis and resulting limitation that the character is experiencing; however, in “The Dead,” the main character develops more sensitive hearing abilities to demonstrate the emergence of an opportunity to escape his unfortunate circumstances in Dublin.
McCann et al. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994, 95-109).